Chak de phatte!

Their great physical strength and spirit of adventure makes rural Punjabis committed sport lovers. For Punjabis, sports are not only a hobby but a basic part of their lifestyle. That could be one explanation why so many Punjabis have done so well in international sports, not only for India - their motherland, but also for their adopted countries, and the Sikhs are a widely travelled community, having settled down in almost every country of the world!

The hunger for adventure and the free time between the sowing and harvesting of a crop gives an average rural Punjabi a lot of time to indulge into extra-curricular activities. This is why Punjab is the only state in India which has a number of rural sports festivals. These festivals — which are normally organized between end of November and the beginning of April focus on unique sports.

The bullock-cart race is one of its kind as it reflects the understanding between a farmer and his best friend - his bullocks (not bollocks!). it is as difficult as horse riding but since all farmers cannot afford horses, they have found another version of it. Bullock cart racING is considered as being cruel to animals by many animal rights activists who are fighting to ban it in India. As you can see in the video the bullocks collide and fall down during the race. For rural Punjabis it is a way to relate to the animals and the fields, all at once. And it is tradition...

This practice has now been banned as it is considered cruel to the animals.Our channel is strongly against any type of animal cruelty and we are showing this to bring about awareness against such practises.

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at rupindang [at] gmail [dot] com and [email protected].